The Chicago and Boston metro areas have shown the biggest gains in IT job postings since the beginning of 2006, but the New York region remains in first place, according to a new report.

The Chicago and Boston metro areas have shown the biggest gains in IT job postings since the beginning of 2006, according to the monthly report released July 11 from Dice.com, a career site for tech professionals.

Chicago and Boston have increased their number of tech jobs available 26.6 percent and 35.4 percent respectively since January, and 116 and 274 new jobs respectively since June.

Silicon Valley, in third place, continued to gain ground on Washington, D.C., which is in second place, with now fewer than 50 jobs posting separating the two IT hubs.

The Valley has been out of the top slot since October 2002 and out of the second since November 2003.

The New York-New Jersey region remained the area with the most available tech jobs for almost the fourth year running, increasing its gap between Washington, D.C., in the No. 2 spot, exponentially.

The cities had a difference of 2,807 jobs in June, up from a differential of just 76 jobs in January of this year.